About the time when the first pitched battle was fought between
Romans and Romans, in the night of the 6th July 671, the venerable
temple, which had been erected by the kings, dedicated by the
youthful republic, and spared by the storms of five hundred years--
the temple of the Roman Jupiter in the Capitol--perished in the flames.
It was no augury, but it was an image of the state of the Roman
constitution. This, too, lay in ruins and needed reconstruction.
The revolution was no doubt vanquished, but the victory was far
from implying as a matter of course the restoration of the old
government.

The mass of the aristocracy certainly was of opinion
that now, after the death of the two revolutionary consuls, it would
be sufficient to make arrangements for the ordinary supplemental
election and to leave it to the senate to take such steps as should
seem farther requisite for the rewarding of the victorious army, for
the punishment of the most guilty revolutionists, and possibly also
for the prevention of similar outbreaks. But Sulla, in whose hands
the victory had concentrated for the moment all power, formed a
more correct judgment of affairs and of men. The aristocracy of
Rome in its best epoch had not risen above an adherence--partly
noble and partly narrow--to traditional forms; how should the clumsy
collegiate government of this period be in a position to carry out
with energy and thoroughness a comprehensive reform of the state?